“No, I will make an effort to stay awake. I will share my past with you. I promise.”
Her body went limp. He could sense the quieting of her mind. He wanted to come against her, just like this and drench her pretty little gown with his seed. But he also wanted to come inside of her. Yet, he was already stroking his cock. With his free hand, he gently rolled her onto her back. She was still passive as a rag doll. He bent and bit lightly at her nipple through the thin cloth, enjoying the feel of the rigid peak between his lips. He tongued the cloth until it was completely wet. He stroked himself steadily, letting the tension build at his own pace.
“Stephen?” she asked, sounding a bit confused.
“You’re here for my pleasure, are you not?”
“Yes, always.”
“Then hush. Be still.” The sensations crested now. He made no attempt to hold back or prolong them. He inhaled, sharply. His come rushed up through his shaft, the quaking pleasure took his breath. His seed jetted out. Spilling over his hand. Spilling all over her.
She gasped.
Several panting groans forced themselves up and out his mouth. He was a little dizzy but he fought the urge to lie down. Instead, he pushed back the covers and moved off of her and stared at her there in the gown that was soaked with his come. Soaked in his pleasure.
Satisfaction surged through him, fierce and primal.
He felt omnipotent. Indeed, his erection wasn’t fading. It was as though he were eighteen again. Eighteen, the age when he had first set eyes on Rebecca, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. “Who owns you, girl?”
Her expression lit with—what? Pleasure? Love? And yet something more, a worshipful look.
She lowered her eyes. “Stephen Drake.”
He pushed up her nightdress to reveal her mons and he trailed his fingertips over the fine golden-brown curls. “Who owns this gorgeous, luscious little place?”
“Stephen Drake does.”
He sank his fingers deeper. Wetness drenched his digits. He delved deeper, into her hot, tight cunt, searching along her forward wall, feeling the slick rings, feeling for—
She arched her hips and gasped.
He pressed harder there, again and again and also brushed his thumb over her swelling nub. Her nub seemed to throb and strain to his touch. She moaned.
He drove her right to the edge of release then paused.
“Stephen.” Her voice held a note of begging. It was highly gratifying.
He withdrew his hand then tugged at the hem of her nightdress. “Here, let’s have this off of you.”
He helped her to remove the garment and then he left the bed to retrieve some silk rope from the chest that his valet had recently brought from his Mayfair townhouse. He returned to her.
Her eyes grew huge. Not with excitement. “No, I don’t want to play, not like that.”
He tossed the rope to the bed and sat beside her. He took her hand. It felt cold now, a little clammy. “You’re still thinking of Barnet?”
She nodded.
“I know, sweeting, but I hate to see you allow them to ruin something that is a playful pleasure for you.”
“I can’t help how I feel.”
“If you give in to this fear now, it will grow larger and larger and overcome you.” He stroked her back, trying convey his deep sympathy whilst remaining firm enough to impress the seriousness of the matter upon her.
“Yes, I know, but must I face it tonight?”
“Fear can be a paralysing thing.” He caressed her neck. “When I was first assigned to a seek out a target, I was young, just barely twenty-one. By then, I was not the gangly youth you may remember.”
She laughed softly. “I adored that gangly boy.”
“They had taught me how to dress, how to talk to women, how to develop the muscular fitness of my body. I had also been carefully trained in all the methods of seduction and manipulation of another person’s emotions and thoughts. But training and actual practice are quite different.”
She held her breath, afraid if she said anything, he’d stop talking.
“To glean certain bits of vital information, I had to seduce my target’s wife, a titled lady at least two decades older than myself. I was terrified.” Humour made his hoarse voice richer. “But somehow, I succeeded.”
She bit back the urge to smile. Of course he had succeeded.
“The husband did not care. But the lady had another lover. A possessive and jealous lover. I was blissfully unaware, focused solely on completing my mission. But the day after my target’s demise, I had to stay on, for appearances and so as to arouse as little suspicion as possible. There was an archery contest.”
She drew in her breath sharply.
“Ah, you thought I was jesting, did you not?”
“I did, oh I am so sorry, I did.”
“I won’t bore you with any further details, except to say when it came her lover’s turn, he missed his target and hit me square in the throat. They say I was very lucky it did not hit a vital artery in my neck. But oh, my God, Rebecca, the pain. The long, dreadful recovery. I could not eat or drink well to say the least. There were several infections and fevers.”
Sympathetic tingling shot from her belly down to the soles of her feet. She curled her toes. “Oh, Stephen! How horrible for you.”
“I lived.”
“Yes, but oh God!” She curled her toes again.
“Afterwards, I was not eager to go out into the field again.”
“Yes, I can imagine, to say the least.”
“For weeks, I lay in bed, letting my motherly housekeeper take care of me and reading and reading and not living. I had been paid well by my superiors, they were actually pleased with my work. But I would not have been able to maintain a house and a servant indefinitely. And I was buying books at an alarming rate. Claret as well, as the coolness of wine seemed to ease my throat more than anything else.
“I also adored eating the juicier fruits—oranges, melons, pineapples—and these were not cheaply acquired either. I could never have gone back to being a mere enlisted man in the Dragoons at that point. I was getting too used to the finer things.”
“Father always accused me of not accepting the place I was born into. He did not approve of me whoring myself for the finer things.”
Stephen frowned. “You never whored yourself. Never. A man like the Earl of Ruel can afford to spoil his favourite mistress. It would have been petty and mean of him if he had not.”
“Father did not see it that way.”
“If we were merely lovers and I was poor and could not afford oranges and pineapples and claret and fancy waistcoats, and you were wealthy, would you buy me these things?”
“Of course.”
“Would you buy them to pay me for carnal acts?”
“No, I would buy them because I would want you to be happy.”
“Then that’s all there is to it. It is simply the way of our world that powerful men offer protection and support to their chosen companions. But you loved him well and he was fond of you. That’s not whoring.”
“I fear Father was correct. I have become accustomed to luxury.”
“Listen to me, Rebecca. You and I were born common, yes. But both of us were meant for better things. You’ll see. We shall travel and have all the adventure and luxury that you like.”
“You promised me a daughter.”
“Yes, that too, God willing.” His voice went hoarser with love.
Hope filled her heart, stunning her with its force. She swallowed hard then asked, “You must have arisen from that bed. What happened?”
“My superior came to me with a dossier on a man who was selling poor children as personal slaves to the highest bidder. They wanted him dead for other reasons, mostly his political espionage. But they knew what it would take to ignite my idealistic zeal to kill this man. I could not resist. Despite my real, lingering fears, I left my invalid’s bed and went back to work.”
“Goodness,
Stephen, what a story.”
“That’s how my voice came to be changed and how I learnt to put my fears behind me.” He studied her closely. “I was losing a vital part of myself during those months I let fear rule me. I determined never to let it rule me again. And I don’t want to see fear control you.”
“I see what you mean,” she said.
“That’s my good girl.”
She held out her hands, meeting his gaze, her eyes huge, pale blue. Beautiful.
Brave.
He took her hands, feeling the fine bones, tracing his fingertips over the nearly translucent skin over her blue veins at her wrists. He felt the weight of her trust. Yet he could feel the tension of her holding her breath. Waiting for what he would do.
He wanted her more on par with him for this particular episode of lovemaking. There would be other times to make her feel utterly mastered, to thrill her with a sense of his domination. This time was about her healing from the harrowing experiences she’d been dealt at Gerard and Barnet’s hands.
He stood and shed his open dressing gown. Then he took her hands. “Come, let’s do something different tonight.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sensuality sparkled in Rebecca’s beautiful pale blue eyes. “Different?”
“Yes.” He tugged on her hands.
She stood and allowed him to lead her across the chamber until her back was against the wall.
Gently, he pulled her hands behind her back then tied them, loosely, with the silk rope. Her breasts began rising and falling faster against his body. “Pull,” he said, “Feel how easily you could free yourself if you chose.”
She pulled, slightly. Then she nodded and her body relaxed against his.
He kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of violet water and soap. “What will you say to me if you truly wish to stop?”
“Halt.”
“Good girl.” He spent several moments kissing, licking, sucking and biting at her nipples, until she began to writhe. He worked his way in a line down her flat stomach, her mons, then gave her several barely-there flicks of his tongue to her nub.
A shudder tore through her and she jerked her hands and came loose, swinging out at her sides.
He looked up at her.
She dropped her mouth open. “Uh-oh.”
He chuckled.
She held out her hands. “You better tie them again.” She licked her lips, her pupils dilated with desire. “You better tie them harder this time.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said.
He saw the trust in her gaze. He kissed her wrists, one and then the other. “My brave, beautiful girl.”
Her breath came increasingly as pants, her small breasts rising and falling. The sight of their bright pink tips lit a charge in his blood. He quickly pulled her arms above her head and secured her wrists again. Then he admired the way the position accentuated those lovely breasts.
He ran his hands over the stiff peaks again and again, then suckled and bit her nipples until she was shrieking her pleasure.
“Stephen, please, oh please…”
The scent of her arousal filled the air, driving him mad. He trailed another line of kisses down her belly. This time he bent on one knee and, spreading her wide, slid two fingers into her wet heat. He stared at her nub, so red, so erect. Her inner lips were swollen, slick.
She was utterly beautiful and her scent was like exotic flowers. Like jasmine.
He traced his thumb over that erect little bud and watched her hips jerk. He bent forward and nipped at her, ever so lightly. Her hips bucked, rocking him on his feet. He smiled. God, he loved her intense carnality. There would be other nights to tie her to the bed and press her down and tease her without mercy. But tonight, in the wake of her father’s hatefulness, he just wanted to spoil her with pleasure. To make her come and come and come.
He used his mouth, his tongue, his teeth to drive her to the edge, until her pleas became convulsive moans, growing louder and louder. He began to thrust his fingers in and out of her, finding the sweetest spot inside her and pressing again and again and again until she arched and froze.
She shrieked and her cunt squeezed his digits, over and over.
Christ, he couldn’t wait. He lifted her and positioned her until he could thrust his cock into her even as he lowered her, slipping his erection into her hot, wet, tight rings.
She wrapped herself about him, her arms around his neck and her legs gripping his waist. Her flesh welcomed him with a fierce squeeze. He groaned.
At the feel of Stephen’s large, thick erection pulsing inside her, Rebecca closed her eyes and moaned. How ever had she become so lucky as to have such a beautiful, virile and—yes, she must admit she adored the fact—young man to drive her insane with need?
Her flesh kept clenching on his hardness. She put her face into his shoulder and moaned.
She’d forgotten how intimate it was to be joined like this, standing, face-to-face, the length of their bodies pressed to each other. The very need to cling to him to keep the position increasing her excitement, increasing the stimulation so quickly.
But this wasn’t just any man.
This was Stephen, her dear love. Her love from years before and now.
Her husband.
He thrust deep inside her, pressing against the mouth of her womb. Then he withdrew and held himself poised just on the brink of entering her.
She whimpered. “Please, please don’t tease me.”
A sound between a laugh and a groan sounded in his throat, the vibrations transmitting into her body and sending a thrill through her. He nipped at her neck, then thrust hard, entering her all the way, rocking her body and pressing her to the wall.
She moaned with satisfaction.
He withdrew and drove into her, again and again, increasing the speed . Driving her higher and higher. They pressed their bodies closer and closer. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get enough of the feel of his lean, long, hard-muscled body against hers.
“Oh God, Stephen, I am going to—”
“Yes,” he said, in a husky, hoarse voice. “Come for me.”
He touched her nub and ignited a firestorm within her. Her inner walls contracted spasmodically on his cock, begging, pleading silently but insistently for him to join her.
Bliss melted through her, hot, sweet, lasting. She licked her lips and let go of a moan that turned into a lingering soft wail.
She felt the hot wash of his seed jetting into her. His hips pressed to hers and he uttered a low growl against her ear.
After they were tucked in bed and Stephen had fallen asleep, Rebecca once again felt the night’s chill creeping in through the coverlet. At the thought of venturing into the cellar to search for more warm quilts, she quailed inside.
She imagined she heard the scratching of rats down in the cellar, scratching, squeaking, demanding to—
No! This was foolish. She was letting a silly fear keep her uncomfortable at night.
Well, tomorrow she would conquer that fear. Damned if she wouldn’t.
* * * *
Rebecca blinked back sleepiness. Slivers of light penetrated the edges of the bedchamber curtains. She tried to focus on the china clock that sat on the mantle but the light was too dim. She made to arise from the bed, intending to open the curtains, but a light touch stopped her.
With a smile, she turned to Stephen’s side of the bed.
“Good morning, my beautiful girl,” he said, his voice hoarser and softer than it would be later in the day. That note in his voice seemed somehow to underline the intimacy of waking up with him. Other people would not see him in that sort of vulnerable moment.
The dim light accentuated the new hollowness of his cheeks. A quivery like spasm of pain gripped her chest, hurt for his suffering, and she put her hand to his face, feeling the scratch of his morning stubble. “Good morning,” she said.
He took her hand and pressed the palm to his
lips. In stark contrast to the heated passion of the night just past, his lips were cool and dry. “Are you still sure that you want to know how I became an assassin?”
Warmth blossomed inside her, radiant as sunlight. He had not forgotten his promise to share his past with her. “I do. I want to know all about you. I want to understand.”
“When Julia died, I was granted leave to go home. What did I have left to go home to? Nothing.” He paused a moment. She saw the slow rise and fall of his chest and heard the deep, ragged intake of his breath. “Nothing but the need to confront my uncle and see his face when I did.
“She was, of course, already in her grave when I arrived. Later that night, when my uncle became deep in his cups, he began to berate Julia. He told me what a weak person she was, what a poor specimen of a woman she was. He said any woman of her age was either married or deemed a failure because of her lack of womanly attractions. He even disparaged her housekeeping and sewing skills.
“I pointed out that her failure to wed was more likely because she didn’t smile back at men or dare to met their gazes. He said she was too shy. I said she had never been shy before coming to live here after our parents’ deaths and that more likely it was the fact that she lacked a maidenhead that made her reluctant to encourage any friendships or courtship with men. And he laughed.
“It was the laughter that did it. I did not, as you might imagine, become overheated with anger. No, it was different. My blood went cold and my mind slowed down. I could think clearer than I ever had in my life. I could see what needed to be done and how to do it.
A chill raced over Rebecca’s scalp and slid down her back.
“I killed him.”
Yes, of course he had. She had known within herself that something must have happened to change Stephen. Even though her heart was pounding with the realization, part of her was not shocked. “What happened then?”
“I had pushed him backwards. He struck his head. His eyes were staring at me, unseeing. I felt nothing but coldness inside. I laid his body in his bedchamber, made it look as though he’d been sleeping off his intoxication and fallen out of bed and hit his head on his chamber pot. It was an ignominious death such as he deserved. Then I collected all her remaining things, the ones he had not sold, and I returned to my regiment. And I tried to forget the whole matter.
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